Trees and Global Warming: The Role of Forests in Cooling and Warming the Atmosphere

Description

Large-scale tree planting is advocated to provide additional atmospheric cooling and further reduce global warming. This raises a question about the present time: do trees cool or warm the atmosphere? This question does not have a simple yes or no answer. Examination of the greenhouse effect, global warming and the carbon cycle, and how trees and forests function provides the basis for understanding how forests might cool or warm the atmosphere. Results from research and models indicate that cooling or warming depends on where forests are located and the type and color of trees. Cooling generally prevails over warming, but this may change. This book will appeal to anyone interested in climate change, ecology and conservation.

William J. Manning is Professor Emeritus in the Laboratory of Plant Environmental Biology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research interests are in plant responses to ambient and elevated CO2 and ozone, urban plant biology, and plants as indicators of ambient ozone. He has published extensively in the primary literature. His teaching has focused on courses in Air Pollution and Climate Change Biology and Urban Plant Biology. He was a member of the US EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council (CASAC). He is the former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Environmental Pollution.

'This is a well written book with useful summaries at the beginning and end of each chapter, and a good set of references that will act as a useful source of information for practitioners, researchers and students.' Peter Thomas, British Ecological Society 'This work is particularly appropriate and useful in this time of great interest in climate change.' F. W. Yow, Choice '... this comprehensive treatment of trees and the forests they compose culminates in his discussion of possible forest-related methods of mitigation for atmospheric change-associated global warming. In essence, this is a significant, well-organized scholarly volume, and an important reference for policymakers who wish to arm themselves with facts relevant to one of today's most important environmental issues.' William L. Crepet, The Quarterly Review of Biology